
Zuib 


V. 





feito gbt :* rJ? » \ ttgtusS ggggfe 

fpeg 5 

u^UintHiS!\nnUUvUUl 
iiw ferea awg^ gfisissfep 




* f ' Jf . :-t; 




. ..if .: . ' ;>li ;- . . 

:•; ■';■■ 

~*£ili§£»l£ml 

•:tv. -.i-.ftislaf -.rbRuii 

;iuf|^w|- 


sHigg&aahs 


ur>$t;i;'»:i^»'t;i::t;:nut«;;::;: 

IsSs** 

KU5 


»•»••»* iKUm .*«> 


►uh:> 

«rl;;t 


Kts:;; ;:ISHP;;l'.ili 

• *.»U! » -‘ »V»I»-V>M ••'»*•«• •**' »»•• 

: «*..• «u* ; r. *.:• i :^ j; i?:r 

|ggg|j§gm 


- • 

^HsmUraK 
s?feRafc8i«ar~ 


;r»; ::r : tr ; * ;?v u 'wm; ►: v; : ur ti itA 


J'T'-iltP.ili!: 


B(*aOtKSt»Tt 


jsssiussi 


t wassi u sut.”.: v>, ir.r tflttS [ :;;:::: i 
^sUuBanROimWKiiVfMttiut 


—t:r* 




*«ftur:TM 

KSSttaSift 




;*,^J *,tJT.u2;W; 
;u»t?KKirMiSi 


:\\rct\ jHH; 8fc ;tVHt:Vk I ;;] 

* *. i( ilji'ti** , #»>' Vij i*Ui 


i'.K*^*'4f'»'» »*»' Vw l*Ui n 

■*- trim *?~WS*SH5iJifMtSfK i 


i* 

sjH“H 





■*fr - : •'••*“■••** ' > *‘*T*?+V if *»S 





Bmi»S 


• • * 


lliftsil 


SliSSaiS 



MB88 


g}*JjRlW* 








- 


• • * » • » * - ■ • .*-•••.••••»*..- 

;v.-:-:r":*r.:":;;::::r::T;:n:r.r.vr:*;:";:. 

.^tW;3R.tUKWttKV»;K'.-.SUUlKBi!«5Bg 
I;;'.;;:-,:.;;-', nttow vSj«B»«ttptturtW'. 
u«Vfwtutr ' , n»".wJ”*rr.’i«w;t! i" jtfciw. 


»••»■»*•*** ***•••«’» r<-* *•!•.» .•-•“*• ».*w.^ni**n * •».».-••>/••». »*»-» w \ tfrr 


ipwimuu UBwi ■ 






suttiv.«»KV.;; 


i^ni 


•>(*>.!. ■'• •■ -H • .• IU.|...t.»f...l.>,.[» 1 '»'■■ 


•* «»-»V» * Vi»\ • » ► I r )t VMM 







HHSSMSttSSSBtco 

r»tir utettirnttHttctr.^ 

" ’ i: - • iriiisUiiisi'rlti: Sn3 

^'~:r U Bl. ijg 


sSti^dSwi&i 

*♦»** ]vn»»*v*v«v».»H’»*VM 

:U;B:iKhgl : .U;H\;Uu' 
S 5t B a 5 5o iip^^ 
a*.,*., 








CiM^K'UTi?* <+ >Jv 

-.m vf 


- • 

xviv, m totifia* 


.. »».» »»T> 
. • .-. ■ • . . 


wt m' m il 

?::£> ■' :tlU5 

* .»»».«<«• ,i.)..v.u.m*. 

;>jnrrr {%: ran 

U ; ; : c r.itMii ;i . . .urm; . . 

151*1''*' t 'l*.*^* ’ tWlv 

;*: rr: ;uuuitw;^ 


n \n\^i\xxu tin ui?« t: 

u: ; u-. ; u; v. . : t:;; s ' t : *. : t«t \; 

«v>ii\ m»> ji 


! * 




iSmSn^Ufii^quiwag ^ 

/ • ■ H r y-'t^ 

;; \l\\ HHrt: IT Ttrir Ui- ^ * U 























O ' „ . »* ,0° *■* 

< 1 * * # *» A < 

V 


f jpw& 



<$* * - ' - 0 


•■•->♦,. V 

> V * 1 *°* c\ 

^ < 5 * ♦/ftW/k- %> ? 

-<S* \ •* 

1 'JOZI' % 

V ^ - 



% *•<•«* , ^9 *<$/*. „.•* ^ °o *•»,•.* , f o ^ ' 

c\ 4.0 .•■i'% > V s »1*«. c\ ,0 .’ ** % <?• 


© I* 1 




V 




** <? 




*bV 


*:•»' cv .o x »vii% *> 


<*> '•«“* a° 

• l '*« '^#. , 0 s o 0 "* 

»y v 

;£K»* ^ o^ • 

>° ^ ”. 

£L? O 


4 > ft O 


■.O’ 


*0* 


* 4 1 


w 


** *v 




1 ,/ V • 


.• oH : * 

* y ^ *> 


%*+* '' 


V • O, 


- / ^ vf* -» 

* . V” v • ^ " * *-a. V « 

^ ' *« *' *Oml* ,6 C> * * * « ' v y 

% °o ,-^ ^ c° .‘^*% <?, .,** V 


V I 4 




* ^> <e 

1 ^*cr 


o V 


2* *"<■• 


♦ o ^ * 

♦ Cr ^ ■-* 


Px AP' 

<&* c r * 


V F f 1 V-* 'C>, 


'vo* 


.V** a 

x <Ar y<* o 

^ ^ o 


A A *© • * 

V . v • 0 <$> 

♦ 435V//V5*> _ rjr 




4f> *.»o' V 

* V V 

^ A* ** 

V\ v 

A.O' - 

/ / V* 

* . ^** *'***’ A** 

0 o •!_••- ^o. ft 


y 'v. - , 

.» o° ^ * 

A 0 o » I 


A v ^ 


: 


.$ t/ 


O • JL 


0 * « 




>. <» 


* # / °^ 
i A i V < 




* *P* 

'to. ,S 


'^0 


o, ^^TT* * ' a^V 


o 

; av^. *„ 

* <y v ° 


/ .^4 ^ 

V ^ A. /j 

: 


* # *» 




L V 


Or o 0 1 * * ^O 












, - '*+ *“ 

O 0 0 -*uV 

A <$> 

* *°* c' sy *•■• ■ 

• ^ A^ i 




• • 


,<=> : 

* 4? * 

5 5 A <\ •*- - - ' y ^ ' 

* < ^*’ „ V • » ^ <P 

A* S 

"o v* : 

kO * 

V «» 

^ *» 1 ^ 9 ''^» *??■>•* 

% ^ ,. v ^;4.‘i'. °rf>. **° *!^Ok% ^ 

* ■* 



* cf? °V -* 

* <y <k * 





1*0 


$ 

^ • 

,v<* * 

.iX* *t> O 

,* 4 X V % _ _ 

A <*'».«* <G 

.** ^ G° 4 . 

• ^O 5 

»° ^ ^ 

^ 45 * * ° 0 ^ ^y 


* %</ / 


r «_ * °* 


cS ^ : 

* - 0 ? ^ * 

4 ^ * 




* ♦ * %$* A* * - 

: v^ v 



f * 0 


© * * 


• 'W • 

• aA • 

** V ^ “♦ 

..** .A <, ' 

*V « »■ * * - <£. 

» 4 *^ 4 _<£ 

.°% ‘.' 1 &« «*o* : 


c vfy ; 

* ^ '^> * 

« &* \b ♦ 





• ^ 


.*«■ 

4> » ! 


^■v. 



* V *t« «. 

•’•** .v‘ v <> 

^ ,*j Wi!fjC&-P ~ Tj 

- «“ O' 





° ^ ^ J - 0 ’’sk " 

O . o -* °0 **,,,. 1 ^ 0 ? ^ **•.«•' ^ 

v •'**' CV J ,0 
r <> vO ^ ^ rCUS ^ c % 1 

Vv V ° 

6 S ^ '.^S^* ,^ V 'V « 

s A 



c > : 

4 yy v . 



«* <* 2 > 
Q V 



If i \ AM«-cJvuftCtU , £<rv>\L Spv'vt - O^'^v^fcx. 

’Y^t-VC^^ r VA J 


HOUSE....N 0 . 44. 


7- #*■' 


L 


7?v 


j~f -*? r jf % 

^ 't&tsi ’"/j cpp > -jp? ,yj 


/ n 

$ tj 




Commoimraltl) of JMassartjttacttB. 



The Joint Special Committee of the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives of the State of Massachusetts, to whom was 
referred the Message of His Excellency the Governor, to- 
gether with certain Resolutions transmitted by him, adopted 
by the States of Maine and Indiana, in regard to the North- 
eastern Boundary, have had the same under consideration, 
and ask leave unanimously to submit the following 


REPORT: 


Your Committee observe, with unalloyed satisfaction, the 
unanimity of sentiment that prevails throughout the United 
States touching this dispute with Great Britain about the North- 
eastern Boundary. It is pleasing to reflect, that, whatever 
may be the differences of opinion among us, that grow out of 
sectional interests or party organizations, when applied to topics 
of domestic origin, they do not exist on this question with a 
foreign nation. A striking proof of it is to be found in the 
Resolutions of the State of Indiana, now under consideration, 
covering, as they do in a preamble, other resolutions of similar 
import adopted by the State of Ohio, and which were directly 
received in a separate form by the proper authorities of this 
State in the course of the last year. These are both of them 
States, which, by reason of their remoteness, cannot feel the 
same deep interest in the issue of the controversy, that is enter- 


/ 




% 


' > 


•\ > 
1 > ^ 


T* /"!?' C* 

***** 

.m-h- . 

2 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. [Feb. 

tained by Maine or Massachusetts ; — yet, notwithstanding this, 
and solely animated by the patriotic wish to sustain the rights 
of their sister States, they have not hesitated to come forward 
of their own accord, and to pledge themselves to maintain the 
integrity of the country. Your Committee cannot doubt, that 
due honor will be awarded to those States for their proceeding. 
And they ardently hope and confidently trust, that the same 
spirit which actuated them will continue to develop itself in 
all other parts of our Union, until the moment arrive, when we 
shall secure, from an altered policy in Great Britain, that jus- 
tice, which has been so long and so unreasonably delayed. 

On the other hand, it is with great regret that your Corrn- 
mittee find themselves compelled to accord with the opinion 
expressed in His Excellency’s Message of the present condition 
of the controversy. The course which Great Britain has, up 
to this time, felt itself justified in pursuing, although, perhaps, 
emanating from convictions as honestly entertained as our 
own, is by no means calculated to accelerate the adjustment of 
all the difficulties in the way of a settlement, or to soften the 
temper in which the discussion may be hereafter conducted. 
If this remark is true, when applied to the whole series of 
movements, which take their date as far back as the Treaty of 
Ghent, it is still more strikingly so, when limited to the pro- 
ceedings of the last two years. Should the Report of the Brit- 
ish Commissioners of Survey, Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and 
Mudge, be taken as in any degree characteristic of the future 
intentions of Her Majesty’s Ministers, it might, indeed, be 
regarded as indicative of a disposition unfavorable to any paci- 
fic settlement whatsoever. For, as His Excellency justly 
remarks, it may well fill the public mind in the United States 
with indignation — and that to a degree eminently unfavorable 
to the cultivation of the coolness and deliberation, which, 

4 

under any circumstances, ought ever to be adhered to in the 
management of great national interests. 

But your Committee have not yet brought themselves to the 
belief, that such is the case. They see nothing, thus far, to 


< 





w 


f > » > 

V) o 


\ I ' 


4 


* t 


1841.] 




3 


HOUSE— No. 44. 

show that the British Government either has given, or is now 
inclined to give, its sanction to the reasoning of that, report. 
They are aware of the fact, how great an obstacle to final 
action upon this subject has been the indifference with which 
it has been regarded, and the absence of a desire, on the part 
of those, in whose hands the subject has been confided, to make 
use of all the evidence they have, and to judge for themselves 
all the arguments requisite for the comprehension of it. A dis- 
cussion of geographical boundary, in a country which has 
hardly been explored, made unnecessarily complicate, and mul- 
tiplying causes for controversy, by tracing back all the existing 
evidences of title to the respective lands that adjoin the territory 
in dispute, is not, in itself, so attractive a matter as to lead to 
much surprise that few will take the pains to understand it. 
It is not hazarding too much to affirm, that, for this reason 
alone, not many good judges of its merits are to be found in 
England. The consequence is very unfortunate. For this 
indifference opens an opportunity for the better knowledge and 
the passions of the inhabitants of the colonies to infuse narrow 
and peculiar views into the national policy. And an argumen- 
tative report like that of the Commissioners already alluded to, 
one which presents an imposing array of authorities marshalled 
with a sole regard to the effect that can be produced by them 
at home, and without respect to truth or honesty of quotation, 
is calculated, in the absence of industry requisite to test its 
solidity, to gain a degree of currency and weight which it 
most assuredly does not deserve. Thus it happens, that the 
harmony of two great countries, which should at no time think 
of each other with feelings other than those of kindness and 
good will, is endangered to the last degree by the action of 
individuals who overlook, in the advancement of some mo- 
mentary ends of their own, the immense injury they might 
become the means of inflicting upon the world. 

In the present state of the case, it is not for Massachusetts 
to falter a single instant in the course she has thus far steadily 
pursued. Year has passed after year without bringing any 


I 


4 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. [Feb. 

stronger hope of a settlement, yet her voice has been heard at 
every suitable opportunity, moderately but firmly repeating 
her conviction of the right. At some times reports have been 
drawn up, elucidating the principles involved; at others, the 
Legislature has embodied the sentiment of the State in the 
form of declaratory resolutions. In view of what has been 
already done, your Committee deem it superfluous at this time 
to go over the entire ground of controversy between the 
nations. For such portions of it as they design to omit, refer- 
ence may be had to the papers which have emanated from the 
Committees of preceding years, and particularly to the able 
report made in the year 1838. Their object at this time, will 
be to confine themselves to the consideration of those views 
taken by the British Commissioners, in their late report, which 
appear to them to deserve especial notice on their part, and to 
expose as far as lies in their power the perverse interpretations 
and the unjustifiable conclusions in which it abounds. But in 
order to do this, it will be absolutely necessary to re-state in as 
brief as manner as possible, the general question. 

The boundaries of the United States were defined by the 
treaty with Great Britain, in the year 1783, which acknowl- 
edged our national independence. They were described with 
much care, and not until after mature deliberation, by the 
framers of that instrument. And the particular portion of that 
description which related to the distinguishing of those lines 
that set off the country, which had succeeded in throwing off 
the yoke of the mother country, from that which still remained 
under her authority, was for obvious reasons a matter of the 
greatest possible interest to both parties. It could hardly have 
escaped the observation of Great Britain, that unless especial 
pains were devoted to the establishing, beyond the liability of 
mistake, the exact lines of separation between the independent 
states and the dependent provinces, a door would be left open 
to the advancement of claims that might ultimately grow very 
embarrassing to her. She was even more deeply interested 
than the United States in preventing this, because she regarded 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


5 


herself as having been already a great loser in the contest. It 
was therefore desirable that she should not be subjected to the 
danger of still farther loss, by any question of doubtful juris- 
diction which it might at a future moment be the pleasure of 
some of her remaining colonists to raise, as a justification for 
joining their neighbors if they should so desire to do. The 
United States had but one danger to apprehend from an unset- 
tled boundary. That was the danger of war with a foreign 
nation. But Great Britain rendered herself liable by it to a 
risk of insurrection in her own territories, and war with a for- 
eign nation united. It became, therefore, a great object in the 
treaty so to describe the territorial limits of the respective 
nations as to leave no reason for doubt in the public mind 
of both, what they were. 

There was, however, one obstacle in the way of success to 
this undertaking, which no effort of the parties could at the 
moment remove. The land through which this demarcation 
was to be made, had been but very imperfectly explored. It 
was not possible to place entire reliance upon the particular 
features of the country as they were found laid down in the 
best maps of the period, because those maps were known not 
to have been drawn upon the most correct principles of sur- 
vey, but to have been based upon partial examination, suffi- 
cient, perhaps, to furnish a correct impression of its general 
configuration, but not sufficient to justify the negotiators in 
striking out any novel delineation of boundary. Under these 
circumstances, it is plain that no safer course was left than to 
adhere, as far as practicable, to those descriptions which had 
been made of the limits upon preceding occasions by the Brit- 
ish government itself, and to supply with still more express 
and definite language than had before been used, the defects 
and incompleteness by which they were characterized. In all 
the action relating to this subject, it is clear from the result, 
that two objects were in the minds of the negotiators. The 
first of these was to seize upon such marked geographical fea- 
tures of the country as could not be mistaken ; the second, to 


6 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


connect them together by so close a chain of description as 
that they could never be confounded or transposed. How 
well they succeeded in attaining those objects, in so far as 
relates to the North-eastern Boundary, may be understood at 
once by reference to the terms of the treaty. They are as 
follows ; 

Article 2. — “ And that all disputes which might arise in future on the subject 
of the boundaries of the said United States map be prevented, it is hereby agreed 
and declared, that the following are and shall be their boundaries, viz : — 
from the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is formed 
by a line drawn due north from the source of St. Croix river to the high- 
lands, along the said highlands which divide those rivers that empty them- 
selves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic 
ocean, to the north -westernmost head of Connecticut river; * * 

East, by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from 
its mouth in the Lay of Fundy to its source, and from its source directly 
north to the aforesaid highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the 
Atlantic ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence.” 

Now it, is believed that there cannot be found in language 
any thing much more simple than this description. Here are 
two lines and an angle. One of these lines is an arbitrary 
north and south line, depending upon no geography whatso- 
ever, excepting for its starting point, which is the source of a 
river. The other line and the angle made by the intersection 
of the two were placed upon the natural division of highlands 
that retained the St. Lawrence in its bed on the one side, and 
sent down the supplies of water for the rivers upon the Atlan- 
tic on the other. Where these highlands were it was not 
absolutely essential for the framers of the treaty to specify, nor 
is it likely that they themselves exactly knew. But they 
knew that water, if on a level, would not flow — they knew 
that water in this region, which they were describing, did flow, 
both towards the St. Lawrence and towards the Atlantic, and 
that was enough for them to be certain of the existence of 
rising ground which made it flow in these opposite directions. 
If there were no such ground, why could not the St. Lawrence 
break through its southern bank in a period of inundation, and 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


7 


find its way into the St. John and the Bay of Fundy, or why 
could not the Atlantic streams, in their turn, retrace their 
course and fall into the St. Lawrence ? The only obstacle to 
this was the barrier created by the hand of nature, and it was 
upon this barrier, far more immovable than any device that 
man can frame, the negotiators of the treaty drew the line of 
separation between the countries. 

Notwithstanding all this, the British Government has under- 
taken to resist this plain construction of the treaty. It has 
assumed the privilege of explaining away every part of this 
description, excepting the north line, and even that the Com- 
missioners of the late survey have also done, And in the 
course of this proceeding, it has multiplied objections and 
heaped up difficulties in a manner calculated rather to confuse 
than to convince the mind of the best disposed inquirer after 
truth. Your Committee are inclined to believe, that the 
American Government has in its overearnest desire to refute 
every argument advanced on the other side, even such as are 
on their face preposterous, contributed something to the same 
result. The consequence is, that the question is needlessly 
complicate, and a justification follows for delay and doubt, 
which works practically in favor of the British position. In 
elaborate controversies between nations, this evil is, perhaps, 
inevitable ; for a case may not be deemed to be fully made out 
unless a satisfactory reply is made to every possible objection 
that ingenuity can devise. But the effect is to strengthen the 
feeble side by wearying the patience, and confusing the judg- 
ment of those most inclined to do it justice. 

Your Committee would then be understood to plant them- 
selves upon the words of the treaty as the only definite 
and certain ground. They would not, for a moment, admit 
the supposition, that these are susceptible of the smallest mis- 
construction, or contain the least ambiguity. Where rivers are 
mentioned, a doubt might properly arise, as to which of 
the branches they divided into are to be considered the 
sources intended. But in the present case, that doubt, as it 


8 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb 


respects the St. Croix, has been dispelled, and nothing remains 
but to find the desired lines and the angle. Can it be credited, 
that the British Government have undertaken, heretofore, to 
declare, that they can no where be found? The position is, 
that there is no such angle, and no line as is described, and 
hence, there can be no performance of the terms of the treaty. 

But your Committee propose to confine themselves to the 
arguments of the British Commissioners of Survey. They 
now maintain the opposite of what has been heretofore ad- 
vanced by their government. They affirm that the terms of 
the treaty may be complied with, provided only that those 
terms are construed in the following novel and original man- 
ner : 


1. “ A line from the source of the St. Croix, directly north” means north- 
west. 

2. “The highlands which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic 
Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence,” means “ the axis 
of maximum elevation,” ranging at a distance of more than one hundred 
miles from the last named streams, and dividing no rivers of any kind, un- 
less it is the tributaries of the Penobscot from those of the St. John, neither 
of which rivers fall into the St. Lawrence. 

3. “The north-west angle of Nova Scotia,” means no angle at all. 

% 

And, in order that they may establish such extraordinary 
propositions, they go into an historical review of the ancient 
titles, and argue upon them as if there were no treaty in the 
way to overrule their authority, and conclude by offering a line 
upon their map, which can as little be made to correspond with 
their own most sophistical argument as with the plain and 
straight forward requisitions of the treaty. 

The law of nations, as applied to the mode of reading 
treaties is little more than the law of common sense as daily 
applied in ordinary life, to all language whatsoever. It is, that 
when the meaning is ubvious, and leads to nothing absurd, 
there is no justification to go beyond it in quest of conjectures, 
that may restrain, or elude, or extinguish it. Your Commit- 
tee cannot admit the right of Great Britain, or the propriety of 


1841. J 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


9 




going into the evidence of ancient records, in order to prove 
that the treaty of 1783 was intended to signify directly the 
reverse of what appears on its face. They would never admit 
any authorities whatsoever, excepting as subordinate to the 
great end which all parties ought equally to have at heart, of 
explaining more fully, or confirming the intent, which its fram- 
ers must have had in using the language which they did use. 
This limit falls very far short of any attempt utterly to deny 
its natural signification. There may be, and doubtless are, 
some variations from former deeds and papers, — but, in all 
these cases, it is far more natural and just to suppose that the 
negotiators on the respective sides designedly adopted them 
than that they did not understand the force of the language 
they were using, or the nature of the change they were mak- 
ing, and more than all, that they meant to say the direct oppo- 
site to what they did say. 

Yet to such an extent as is here described does the reason- 
ing of Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Survey in substance 
go. It would appear, from the beginning of their report, that, 
not content with performing the specific duty assigned to them 
of an exploration of the territory, they have engaged in a work 
of supererogation called “a Review of the Documentary and 
other evidence bearing on the question of boundary.” It is this 
review, to which your Committee now propose to direct their 
particular attention, — a review, which, however great may be 
the authority which it will acquire in Her Majesty’s dominions, 
they feel constrained to declare, not only does not weaken in 
the slightest degree, the confidence they feel in the perfect 
soundness of the American position, but, on the contrary, does 
something incidentally to establish it more firmly than ever. 
The reasons for this assertion will be fully explained in the 
sequel. 

On the 9th of July, 1839, Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and 
Mudge received written instructions from Lord Palmerston to 
repair to Her Majesty’s Province of New Brunswick for the 
purpose, as it is stated in the report, “ of making investiga- 

2 


10 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


tions respecting the nature and configuration of the territory in 
dispute, and to report which of the three following lines pre- 
sents the best defined continuity of highland range : 

First. The line claimed by the British Commissioners, from the source of 
the Chaudiere to Mars’ Hill. 

Secondly. The line from the source of the Chaudiere to the point at 
which a line drawn from that source to the western extremity of the Bay of 
Chaleurs, intercepts the due north line. 

Thirdly. The line claimed by the Americans, from the source of the 
Chaudiere to the point at which they make the due north line end.” 

In obedience to these instructions, the gentlemen proceeded 
immediately to their work, the result of which was a Report, 
dated on the 16th of April, 1840. If your Committee deduct 
from the period of nine months, embraced between the dates of 
the instructions and of the report, the time it must have requir- 
ed for them to get from Great Britain to the scene of their in- 
vestigations, and also the entire season of winter, during which, 
in that cold climate, surveying operations are not practicable, 
scarcely three months are left in which the survey could have 
been carried on, a length of time by no means sufficient for the 
full examination of three several lines, extending, as they do, 
over so great a surface of territory. It does not appear from 
the report and the accompanying map, that the commissioners 
did examine with care more than one of those lines, and that 
is the one which they affirm to be in accordance with the 2d 
article of the treaty. For their delinquency in respect to the 
other two, they endeavor to atone by an argument respecting 
the evidence of ancient boundaries, to make which does not 
seem to have been one of the duties enjoined upon them in 
their instructions. The effect of this course upon the report 
has been, that whilst thirty-five of its folio pages have been 

devoted to a purpose which they were not called upon to fulfil, 

* 

only thirteen pages and an appendix were devoted to the sup- 
ply of the information required. So that it has been justly 
remarked of the production, that what was called the appendix 
should properly have made the body of the report, and two- 


1841 .] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


11 


thirds of what was styled the report, should have been put, if 
any where, into the appendix. 

It is with great regret that your Committee feel themselves 
compelled to declare, that this review of the documentary evi- 
dence is utterly wanting in every quality which should recom- 
mend it to the confidence of the British Government. It is by 
no means certain that Her Majesty’s Ministers have, thus far, 
given to it their sanction. Neither will they, as your Commit- 
tee firmly believe, if they ever gain the means of thoroughly 
understanding its nature. They would then feel at once that 
a cause is injured by the resort to disingenuous arts in order to 
sustain it — and that it would be more creditable to abandon it 
altogether, if it can be supported by no other means, than to 
succeed by the use of them. 

The review begins with a historical notice of the settlement 
of Acadia, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, as the territory ad- 
joining the State of Maine has been successively called. The 
first European grant of it on record, was made by Henry the 
IV. of Prance, in 1603, to the Sieur de Monts. This was a 
grant of a country called u Acadie,” and described as being be- 
tween the 40th and 46th parallels of north latitude, in North 
America. It was made in the loose and indefinite manner at 
that time customary among the sovereigns of the old world, 
who appear to have carved out kingdoms by parallels of lati- 
tude upon the American continent, with as much indifference 
as they performed the commonest act of life. De Monts made 
but a single attempt to settle upon the northern portion of this 
granted land, and finding it not to his mind, he removed to 
Port Royal, on the peninsula now called Nova Scotia, to the 
south of his former position. It does not appear that he, 
or any one under him, ever attempted again to avail him- 
self of the grant of this northern territory. Neither does it 
appear as if so loose a description as is given of it could be of 
much effect upon the discussion of the terms of the treaty of 
1783 ; yet, strange to say, it appears to constitute one of the 
strong points of the British commissioners. It happens that 


/ 


12 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. [Feb. 

the forty-sixth parallel of latitude, being the northern limit of 
the grant, corresponds in part with that u axis of maximum 
elevation,” as they describe it, which they insist upon as the 
line of boundary marked out in the treaty. This is quite 
enough for them to base upon it an assertion that the jurisdic- 
tion of French Acadia did not extend beyond this line, and 
all to the north of it made part of the province of Quebec. 

Now your Committee admit, that the northerly limit of the • 
grant to De Monts was declared to be the forty-sixth parallel, 
but inasmuch as no settlement was made in the territory thus 
bounded, they do not exactly understand how any jurisdiction 
could have been either exercised or limited. The present at- 
tempt to give to a grant, worded in the most general manner, 
the force of a specific demarcation; appears to them to be idle ; 
and the endeavor to place under the jurisdiction of Quebec, 
what was not at the time under any definite authority whatso- 
ever, is quite of a piece with it. But, in addition to the gen- 
eral argument against this grant as a specific definition of bound- 
ary, there is a particular one drawn from another portion of 
the deed itself, — for authority was therein conferred, not mere- 
ly within the limits specified, but to extend settlements in the 
neighborhood of them as far as possible. The words of the 
original are as follows : 

“ Sur tout, peupler, cultiver et faire habitus les dites terres, le plus prompte- 
ment, soigneusernent et dextrement, que le temps, les lieux, et commo- 
dity le pourront permettre, en faire ou faire faire a cette Jin la d6couverte 
et recognoissans en 1’ctendue de cotes maritimes et autres contre£s de la 
Terre ferine, quo vous ordonnerez et prescrirez en l’espace susdit du qua- 
rantieme degre jusqu’au quarante-sixieme, ou aulrement , tant et si avant qu'il 
se pourra , le long des dites cotes et en la Terre ferme &c. 

* 

Which your Committee would render by the following 
words : 

“ Moreover, to people, to cultivate and cause to be settled the said lands, 
as quickly, carefully, and dexterously as the time, the places and convenience 
will allow ; to make, or cause to be made, to this end, any discovery and ex- 




HOUSE— No. 44. 


13 


1841.] 


amination in the extent of maritime coast, and of other countries on the 
main land, which you shall order and prescribe within the aforementioned 
space, extending from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree, or otherwise as 
much and as far forward as possible in the length of the said coasts, and into 

the main land.” 


It is believed, that De Monts had a trading station at Que- 
bec, but whether under this general grant, or under a special 
one subsequent to it of far less extent and authority, your 
Committee will not now decide. It is enough for the present 
purpose to shew, by its very terms, which are in no way 
noticed or alluded to by Her Majesty's commissioners , that this 
grant was obviously intended to carry no such specific limita- 
tion of boundaries as they insist upon, but to confer a general 
power to make settlements in a direction corresponding to cer- 
tain parallels of latitude in North America. 

Yet, in order to fortify this argument, by which it is attempt- 
ed to bring the northern limit of Nova Scotia or Acadie, so 
conveniently down to “ the axis of maximum elevation,” 
which figures in the report and upon the map as the true bound- 
ary line, one old French grant of a fief on the north of this 
line made by the governor of Quebec is adduced in proof that 
the jurisdiction of that government extended to this line. 
There is no doubt, that the Governor, holding the joint author- 
ity over Canada and Acadia , did, in the years 16S3 and 1684, 
grant some such fiefs in the territory near Lake Temisquata, 
and the upper part of the St. John’s. And it is a little remark- 
able, that Her Majesty’s commissioners, who had several to 
select from, should have selected one, in which no mention at 
all is made of the power over Acadia vested in the governor, 
and should have noticed that fact nowhere else themselves. 
Neither did they notice the fact that such grants generally 
appear in the same instrument with other grants of more con- 
sequence, decidedly within the limits of the province of Que- 
bec, and are, therefore, very naturally placed upon its records. 

But your Committee would not be understood as attaching 
the slightest importance to this evidence. They have gone 


14 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


into it only to shew that even in such trifling particulars, Her 
Majesty’s commissioners have not thought it beneath them to 
be guilty of partial suppressions. The real truth is, that there 
was nothing like a settled jurisdiction over any of the territo- 
ries now in question during the seventeenth century ; and this 
your Committee understand the report to admit, (p. 12.) For 
it expressly states, that, what with English and French occupa- 
tion, according to the fortune of war, and what with the con- 
fusion occasioned by French grants overlapping one another, 
the jurisdiction was fluctuating and wholly irregular. Indeed, 
how could it have been otherwise ? And yet the British com- 
missioners, with the aid of a grossly imperfect map, which 
they have dragged out of the dust of the British Museum, have 
the assurance to pretend, that “ the government of Que- 
bec, when possessed by France, had jurisdiction, (by that evi- 
dently intending a settled authority,) as far south as the forty- 
sixth parallel.” A most unjustifiable inference from such par- 
tial premises. 

But now comes the grand discovery of the report. This 
relates to the first English grant of Acadia made by James the 
First to Sir William Alexander in 1621, and is expressed in the 
following terms : 

“ It will be seen from this examination, that reasonable grounds exist for 
supposing, that a singular perversion of the terms used in the description of 
that boundary has long existed, and that the line of boundary intended by 
the grant of Nova Scotia, is so much at variance with that which has usu- 
ally appeared on the greater number of maps, as entirely to change the na- 
ture of the northern boundary of the United States, from that which has 
hitherto been understood to be its direction.” 

And this great change which is at one blow to put an end to 
the American claim is to be effected by the simple means of 
putting a comma into an old parchment, where no comma was 
before. But, in order to explain this, reference must be had 
to the original, which contains the following description of 
boundary. 

“ Omnes et singulas terras continentis, ac insulas situatas et jacentes in 
America intra caput seu promontorium communiter Cap de Sable appellat. 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


15 


Jacen. prope latitudinem quadraginta trium graduum aut eo circa ab equi- 
noctial! linea versus septentrionem, a quo promontorio versus littus rnaris 
tenden ad occidentem ad stationem Sanctse Marise navium vulgo Sanct ma- 
reis Bey. Et deinceps, versus septentrionem per directam linearn introitum 
sive ostium magnse illius stationis navium trajicien. quee excurrit in terree 
orientalem plagam inter regiones Suriquorum et Etcheminorum vulgo Suri- 
quois et Etchen lines ad fluvium vulgo nomine Sanctee Crucis appeliat. Et 
ad scaturiginem remotissimam sive fontem ex occidentali parte ejusdem qui 
se primurn predicto fluvio immiscet. Unde per imaginariam directam lin- 
eam quae pergere per terrain seu currere versus septentrionem concipietur 
ad proximam navium stationem, fluvium vel scaturiginem in magno fluvio 
de Canada se exonerantem. Et ab eo pergendo versus oi ientem per maris 
oris littorales ejusdem fluvii de Canada ad fluvium, stationem navium, porttim 
aut littus communiter nomine de Gathepe vel Gaspee notum et appella- 
tum.” 

Which Her Majesty’s commissioners desire to translate thus : 

“All and each of the lands of the continent, and the islands situated and 
lying in America within the headland or promontory, commonly called 
Cape Sable, lying near the forty-third degree of latitude from the equinoc- 
tial line or thereabouts. From which promontory stretching westwardly, 
towards the north, by the sea-shore, to the naval station of St. Mary, com- 
monly called St Mary’s Bay. From thence, passing towards the north by a 
straight line, the entrance or mouth of that great naval station, which pene- 
trates the interior of the eastern shore betwixt the countries of the Souriquois 
and the Etchemines, to the river commonly called the St. Croix. And to the 
most remote source or spring of the same on the western side, which first 
mingles itself with the aforesaid river. From whence, by an imaginary 
straight line, which may be supposed to advance into the country, or to run 
towards the north to the nearest naval station, river, or spring, discharging 
itself into the great river of Canada. And from thence advancing towards 
the east by the gulf shores of the said river of Canada, to the river, naval 
station, port, or shore, commonly known or called by the name of Gathepe 
or Gasp6.” 

Her Majesty’s commissioners of survey, being well versed in 
Latin, maintain that a comma should be put before the words 
“ versus Septentrionem,” and not after it, although it appears 
after it, in their own report. The effect of this little trans- 
position, is really wonderful. It is neither more nor less than 

to make the words which now stand in the translation, u to- 
wards the North,” signify “more west than north.” And this 


16 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


being once established, the consequence seems to be, according 
to them, that the words in the treaty, “ due north,” and “ di- 
rectly north,” must have been intended to mean about north- 
west. 

Now your Committee do not deem it necessary to go into 
any critical examination of the rendering of this old Latin 
charter. It is enough for them to know, that under this grant, 
such as it is , the line has always been laid down in the Eng- 
lish maps, and as they think justly, as a due north line, and 
that all the deeds and commissions of the British government 
upon record, define it as such. And against this uniform con- 
struction of the grant, it is not for Her Majesty’s commission- 
ers to come in at this late hour, with a nice question of punc- 
tuation, and attempt to overthrow the unequivocal language of 
a treaty solemnly made between two independent nations. 

But the gentlemen, not content with raising a doubt upon 
the construction of this instrument, to fortify their case against 
the American claims, have actually gone so far as to insinuate 
that the government of the United States has knowingly sanc- 
tioned mistranslations of particular passages of the said instru- 
ment for the sake of counteracting the force of the natural 
meaning. This is a serious charge, and should have been well 
considered before it was given to the world. If true, it ought 
to constitute, in the minds of all honorable men, a strong argu- 
ment against our claim, that it should have been thought to need 
support from so miserable and so gross a device. But if, on 
the other hand, it has no foundation whatsoever, and was 
made with the knowledge that it had none, what must be 
thought of the spirit of justice and impartiality of those who 
advance it? Your Committee hope to establish beyond the 
possibility of contradiction, the fact not only that the charge 
is not true, but that it must have been known not to be so by 
the commissioners when they made it. 

The translation from which they have thought proper to 
select two errors for animadversion, was one inserted in an 
appendix to a report made upon the subject of the boundary 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


17 


by a Committee of the Legislature of Maine, in the year 1828. 
This report and appendix were reprinted by order of the 
Senate of the United States, and again printed, together with 
many documents connected with the boundary, by order of 
the House of Representatives of the Union for the information 
of those bodies. Hence it is that this translation is called by 
the commissioners, an official one. The errors contained in 
it, if they deserve so serious a name, are only two. The com- 
missioners complain that “ versus septentrionem ” is rendered 
u to the north ” instead of 11 towards the north, ” and that the 
words “ proximam navium stationem ” is rendered by “ first 
bay, 5 ’ and not by “ nearest road,” neither of which is a greater 
variation from the sense than their own translation of the words 
u per marts oras littorales,” u by the gulf shores ” instead of 
“ sea shores,” and neither of which deserved to bring on an attack 
upon the integrity and good faith of the American govern- 
ment. 

But had the errors discovered in this paper been ten times 
greater than they are, the government of the United States 
never should have been made accountable for it by persons who 
had under their own eye the translation of it, for which it had 
assumed a direct responsibility before the king of Holland. In 
that translation, the words complained of are rendered exactly 
as the commissioners desire them. That they had no knowl- 
edge of it is impossible to believe, inasmuch as they quote 
from the American statement, in which it is contained, a pas- 
sage which is found upon the very next leaf to the one in 
which it is inserted. And even without this accidental proof, 
it could not for a moment be supposed, that persons who de- 
signed to present an elaborate review of the American preten- 
sions, as they are called, would not make themselves perfectly 
familiar with the only volume extant, in which they are set 
forth at large under the sanction of the government. What 
then, your Committee repeat, must be thought of the inten- 
tions of individuals who, with the knowledge of all the facts 

in the case, set their hands to a deliberate perversion of them, 

3 


18 NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. [Feb. 

v 

merely for the sake of casting a slur upon the honor of a for- 
eign country with which they are in dispute ? 

The grant to Sir William Alexander is important, as elucidat- 
ing the origin of the description of the boundary, as it now 
stands in the treaty, but not for any other reason. Your Com- 
mittee are clearly of opinion, that it does describe the line 
from the head waters of the St. Croix, as a due north line, and 
that this construction uniformly put upon it, from the earliest 
date down to this day, is the natural and just one. It will be 
perceived, however, by reference to the words, that the terri- 
tory granted, extended on the north to the shores of the St. 
Lawrence, which is a variation from the present boundary of 
Nova Scotia. How that variation was made, will be seen in 
the sequel. For at this time it appears expedient to follow the 
British commissioners into that field where they have exhibited 

their disingenuous policy most strikingly, that is, in the discus- 

\ 

sion of the Massachusetts title on the west side of the disputed 
boundary, now making part of the State of Maine. 

On the 12th of March, 1663, Charles II. made a grant to his 
brother, the Duke of York, of a territory thus described: 

“ All that part of the main land of New England, beginning at a certain 
place called or known by the name of St. Croix, adjoining to New Scotland 
in America ; and from thence extending along the sea-coast, unto a certain 
place called Pemaquin or Pemaquid, and so up the river thereof to the 
furthest head of the same as it terideth northward, and extending from 
thence to the river of Kennebec, and so up, by the shortest course to the 
river of Canada, northwards.” 

This is the country which was formerly known under the 
name of Sagadahock, and there had always been some question 
as to the title, between the French, who claimed it as part of 
Acadia, and the English. Yet, after the treaty of Breda, in 
1667, when Acadia was restored to France by Great Britain, 
which had taken possession of it during the war, the Duke of 
York obtained a confirmation of his grant in 1674. And it 
remained under his authority until, by his accession to the 
throne, it became vested again in the crown. Hence it is evi- 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


19 


dent, that it was not then considered as a part of the restored 
territory. 

Your Committee have now reached what they regard to be 
the most disingenuous suppression of the report. The new 
charter of Massachusetts, granted by William and Mary, in 
1691, was made to include the province of Maine, this territory 
of Sagadahock, and Nova Scotia itself, as follows : 

“The colony of the Massachusetts Bay and colony of New Plymouth, the 
province of Maine, the territory called Acadia or Nova Scotia, and all that 
tract of land lying between the said territories of Nova Scotia, and the said 
province of Maine.” 

These words are truly quoted by the commissioners. Then 
follow in their report the terms of the grant to the Duke of 
York, (already quoted by your Committee,) in order to explain 
what is referred to as “ that tract of land,” &c. Immediately 
afterwards is inserted one of the reservations of the charter. 

“Provided, alwaise, that the said lands, islelands, or any premises by the 
said letters patent, intended or meant to be granted, were not then actually 

possessed or inhabited by any other Christian prince or state.” 

» 

Three pages forward, (p. 18,) another reservation is quoted 
as follows : 

/ 

“ By the charter of 1691 Massachusetts was forbid to issue grants in the 
Sagadahoc territory ; it declared them not to be 

“Of any force, validity or effect, until we, our heirs and successors, shall 
have signified our or their approbation of the same.” 

Now it appeared singular, to say the least of it, that by the 
peculiar arrangement of these paragraphs, the general phrase of 
<c the Sagadahoc territory” should have been made to refer back 
to the old grant of the Duke of York, with which the present 
charter had no sort of connexion, and the terms of that charter 
itself, which very exactly describe the territory to which the 
clause of limitation was to apply were wholly overlooked. 
But your Committee had no cause for surprise when they per- 
ceived what those terms were. The provision of the charter 
so disingenuously quoted runs thus : 


20 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


“ That no grant or grants of any lands, lying or extending from the river of 
Sagadahock to the Gulf of St, Lawrence and Canada rivers , and to the main sea 
northward and eastward , to be made or passed by the Governor and General 
Assembly of our said province be of any force,” &c. 

Very unfortunately for the commissioners, these words 
marked in Italic letters cut off their argument, that Nova Sco- 
tia extended, by a northwest line, to the Chaudiere river, and 
hence that the subsequent cession of that territory, by Great 
Britain, back to France, in 1697, shut out Massachusetts from 
the St. Lawrence ; hence they determined to suppress them 
without ceremony, and by this mode of proceeding, and by 
this alone , have they been able to place in their recapitu- 
lation the following proposition : 

“ Vll. It is shown that the charter of William and Mary, of 1691, does 
not extend the grant of the Sagadahock country to the St. Lawrence, but 
only grants the lands “between the said country or territory of Nova Scotia 
and the said river of Sagadahoc, or any part thereof,” so that the extreme 
interpretation of this grant would require, for the northern limit, a line pass- 
ing between the head water of the St. Croix river and the source of the 
Sagadahoc or Kennebec river, which would nearly coincide with a line 
passing between the western waters of the St. Croix and the highlands 
which divide the Kennebec from the Chaudiere. 

Upon similar principles of quotation to those here used, it 
would be perfectly easy to show almost any proposition to be 
drawn from almost any book. 

But this is not all. It is well known that Nova Scotia was 
restored to France in 1697, as already stated, and was, there- 
fore, separated from Massachusetts. But in order to prove 
that her title to Sagadahoc also was shaken by this act, the 
British commissioners quote an admission, as they call it, made 
in the official American statement, drawn up for the arbitration 
of the king of Holland. The true passage reads as follows : 

“ Great Britain, however, agreed by the treaty of Ryswick of 20th Sep- 
tember, 1697, to restore to France ‘ all countries, islands, forts and colonies, 
wheresoever situated, which the French did possess before the declaration 
of war.’ Acadia or Nova Scotia being clearly embraced by those expres- 
sions, and being thus severed from the British dominions, the clause of the 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


21 


Massachusetts charter, which annexed that territory to Massachusetts, was 
virtually repealed, and became a nullity. The understanding of the British 
government of the extent of that restitution , will he found in the following sen- 
tence of a letter from the Lords of the Board of Trade , dated 30 th October , 1700, 
to the Earl of Bellamont , the Governor of Massachusetts , viz : 6 as to the bounda- 
ries, we have always insisted , and shall insist upon the English right as far as the 
river St. Croix!” 

This extract is quoted in the report as an admission, only be- 
cause the very significant sentence in Italic letters is utterly 
omitted. A sentence which precludes at once all question re- 
specting the opinion of the grantor of the charter, of the extent 
of the cession. And it is against that grantor alone, that the 
United States have at this time their right to defend. Your 
Committee must be allowed here to express the opinion that a 
cause must be believed to be weak indeed which is found to 
need support of this kind. It can scarcely be thought that 
Her Majesty’s commissioners who drew up this report could 
have had much confidence in the natural strength of the posi- 
tion of Great Britain, when they strive so sedulously to keep 
out of view every trace of authority that bears against it. 

Your Committee do not deem it expedient to go into the 
history of the transitions from British to French authority, and 
back again, which the country called Acadia underwent, for 
the simple reason that, however strongly they might furnish 
arguments upon questions when agitated between the British 
and the French Government, they can have but a secondary 
and trifling application to those between Great Britain and 
the United States. But they would be understood as protest- 
ing against the right of the first of these powers to vary its 
tone according to no principle, but simply as its interest may 
dictate. It is not fair for the same Government to insist in 
1700 upon claiming against France the territory as far East 
as the St. Croix, when it held jurisdiction only on the 
West side of that river, and to insist that the moment its 
position is changed, and it stands to the United States in the 
very position that France held relatively to itself, the old claim 
of France to go to the Penobscot which it once strenuously re- 
sisted should inure to its present benefit. 


22 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


The treaty of Paris signed on the 10th of February, 1763, to 
which Great Britain, France and Spain were the parties, secured 
to the first named final and undisputed authority over all the 
territories in the vicinity of the land now in question. Canada 
and Nova Scotia fell into the same hands which controlled 
Massachusetts and the other North American Colonies. Of 
consequence the duty devolved upon the British Government 
of organizing the possessions newly acquired in some definite 
shape under its authority, and of defining the limits between 
them and such as it formerly held. That duty was performed 
by a proclamation issued under the King’s name on the 7th of 
October of this year. And in that proclamation the new go- 
vernment of Quebec was declared to be 

“ Bounded on the Labrador coast, by the river St. John* and from thence 
by a line drawn from the head of that river through the Lake St. John to the 
South end of the Lake Nipissin, from whence the said line crossing the river 
St. Lawrence and the Lake Champlain, in forty-five degrees of North lati- 
tude, passes along the High Lands which divide the rivers that empty themselves 
into the said river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the sea and also along 
the North coast of the bay des Ciialeurs and the coast of the Gulpli of St. 
Lawrence to Cape Rosieres,” &c. 

Now that part of the description thus made, which relates to 
the line separating Quebec from Nova Scotia and Massachusetts 
is the only one of importance to the present question. By that 
it will be perceived a material variation was made from all 
preceding deeds, by which Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, 
which had formerly extended to the St. Lawrence, were now 
shut out from it just so far as the Highlands referred to might 
happen to lie on the south side of its bank. And this variation 
is admitted by Her Majesty’s commissioners to furnish the first 
traces of the language used in the treaty of 1783. 

The questions immediately occur : “ Was not this a deliber- 
ate change made by the British Government for some specific 
purpose ?” And if so, “ what could have been the nature of that 

* This is another and a different river from the St. John that flows into the 
Bay of Fundy. 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


23 


purpose ?” And very fortunately your Committee are not 
without a clue to the explanation of them both. 

Almost at the same moment that this proclamation, defining 
the boundaries of Quebec in the north, was dated, a commis- 
sion of Governor of Nova Scotia, the adjoining province on 
the south, was issued to Montague Wilmot containing a 
description of its boundaries. They are as follows : 

“To the northward, our said province shall be bounded by the southern 
boundary of our Province of Quebec, as far as the western extremity of the 
Bay des Chaleurs. To the eastward by the said Bay and the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, &c. &c. 

“ To the westward, although our said province hath anciently extended and doth 
of right extend as far as the river Pentagonet or Penobscot it shall be bounded 
by a line drawn from Cape Sable across the entrance of the Bay of Fundy 
to the mouth of the river St. Croix by the said river to its source, and by a 
line drawn due north from thence to the southern boundary of our colony 
of Quebec.” 

Two things are remarkable in this commission ; the first, a 
variation of the words from those contained in the old grant to 
Sir William Alexander, by the entire omission of the direc- 
tion, “ towards the north,” in describing the line from Cape 
Sable to the mouth of the St. Cioix, and by the substitution 
of the words, “ a line drawn due north” for “ towards the 
north ” in the last part ; the second, the insertion of that sav- 
ing clause by which the old French claim, that Nova Scotia 
extended beyond the St. Croix to the Penobscot, was kept up. 
It is not probable that any of this language was adopted with- 
out a reason. 

But when your Committee turn from this commission to 
those of five successive governors who came after Mr. Wilmot, 
and perceive that, although the general provisions are exactly 
the same in all, this little saving clause, as marked in Italic 
letters, is entirely omitted, it appears to them plain enough 
that this omission is as indicative of some marked design as 
was the original insertion. The great difficulty in the way is 
to know, at this remote period, the precise motive of this sin- 


24 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


gular variation. And it is scarcely probable that any one could 
ever have divined it, if it had not been for the discovery of a 
passage in a letter from Jasper Mauduit, agent of Massachusetts 
bay, to the secretary of said province, dated London, 9th June, 
1764, which fully explains the cause of the whole proceeding. 
It runs as follows : 

“ Sir, — It is with pleasure that I now write to inform the General Court, 
that their several grants of lands to the east of Penobscot, are in a fair way 
of being confirmed. 

“ Mr. Jackson and I, have sought all opportunities of bringing this busi- 
ness forward ; but the Board of Trade has been so much engaged, that they 
could not before attend to it. In the course of the affair the chief things 
insisted on, were, that the lords, notwithstanding the opinion formerly given, 
are still disposed to think the right of the province doubtful as to lands be- 
tween Penobscot and St. Croix, because the case was misstated to the 
Attorney and Solicitor General, and that, whatever be the determination on 
this head, yet the lords think, that the province can claim no right to the 
lands on the river St. Lawrence ; because the bounds of the charter are 
from Nova Scotia to the river Sagadahock ; so that this right cannot extend 
above the head of that river. That, however , if the province will pass an act, 
empowering their agent to cede to the crown all pretence of right or title, 
they may claim under their charter, to the lands on the river St. Lawrence, 
destined by the royal proclamation to form part of the government of Quebec ; 
the crown will then wave all further dispute concerning lands as far as St. 
Croix, and from the sea-coast of the bay of Fundy to the bounds of the 
province of Quebec, reserving to itself only the right of approbation as 
before. Mr. Jackson and I were both of us of opinion, that the narrow 
tract of land, which lies beyond the sources of all your rivers, and is 
watered by those which run into the river of St. Lawrence, could not be an 
object of any great consequence to you, though it is absolutely necessary to 
the crown, to preserve the continuity of the government of Quebec, ‘ and 
that therefore it could not be for your interest to have the confirmation of 
those grants retarded upon that account.’ ” 

From this very satisfactory explanation, your Committee 
think it may clearly be inferred, 

1. That the variation in the boundary of duebec, so as to 
include the south bank of the St. Lawrence, was deemed by 
the British Government absolutely necessary. 

2. That the great obstacle in the way of such variation, 
consisted in the claim of the province of Massachusetts to 
extend her limits to that river. 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


25 


3. That in order to bring about an inclination on the part of 
Massachusetts, to cede her claim to go to the St. Lawrence, it 
was deemed advisable to revive the old French title now vest- 
ed in Great Britain through the acquisition of Acadia to the 
lands of Sagadahoc. 

4. That a compromise was afterwards made, by which 
Great Britain, in consideration of the lands on the south side 
of the St. Lawrence, claimed by Massachusetts, being ceded 
without dispute to Quebec, agreed to wave all further question 
respecting the jurisdiction of Massachusetts as far east as the 
St. Croix. 

5. That the evidence of the establishment of such a com- 
promise consists of the proclamation of 17G3 further confirmed 
by the Quebec act of 1774, on the one side, and the omission 
of the saving clause in the commissions of all the governors 
of Nova Scotia subsequent to 1703 on the other. 

6. That the land thus ceded by Massachusetts was consid- 
ered by the agents of the parties at the time as a narrow tract 
of land, and of no great consequence. 

Yet directly in the face of all this, Her Majesty’s commis- 
sioners now pretend that the proclamation of 1763 took at one 
grasp a territory extending more than a hundred miles on the 
south side of the river, and that this narrow tract of land, of no 
great consequence to be ceded, is an immense territory watered 
by the St. John, and its tributaries, larger than the present 
State of Massachusetts. 

If the whole of these proceedings of 1763 and 17G4, be con- 
sidered entire, your Committee think they will show that the 
British government at that time being stimulated by the recent 
acquisition of Quebec, did deliberately and intentionally, and 
with their assent, make a distinct repartition of the several 
provinces under their jurisdiction, so that the boundaries of 
each might thereafter be perfectly established, and no unsettled 
claims be longer agitated between them. The boundaries of 
Massachusetts, therefore, at the period of the revolution, were 
admitted by these acts of the government to be those described 

4 


26 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


in her charter of 1691, modified only by her tacit assent to 
those terms of the proclamation of 1763, which shut her out 
from the river St. Lawrence. The British government is 
therefore estopped, by her free and unconstrained assent to those 
boundaries in 1783 as the same that were acknowledged by 
her in 1763, from ever going back into the history of ancient 
titles, French or English, to rake up matter with which to 
defend her present claim. 

The British commissioners of survey, finding themselves 
somewhat embarrassed by (he uniform tenor of the ancient 
maps of the disputed territory, all of which favor the American 
demarcation of the boundary, have, with commendable indus- 
try, turned their attention to the means of counteracting this 
influence. The result has been the discovery, in the British 
Museum, of an old map, by an Italian named Coronelli, pub- 
lished in 1689. And as it happened that this old map marked 
a curved line of separation, which could be made to corres- 
ond, in a degree, with the position assumed by them, these 
gentlemen very graveiy bring it forward as an important part 
of their case. It is melancholy to see the nature of the devices 
to which they stoop in defence of the British position. This 
map, such as it is, places Nova Scotia upon the west side, 
instead of the east side of the St. John's, puts the Penobscot 
and the Kennebec in each other’s places, and is, in all other 
respects, as rude as can well be imagined. Yet this is the 
authority which is relied upon in part, to prove that due north 
means more west than north, and that the framers of the 
treaty did not know their own meaning, when they defined 
the boundary as a north line. 

The map of De Lisle is not worthy of any more considera- 
tion than that of Coronelli. But it may be advisable to dwell 
upon that of Evans for the sake of the singular blunder into 
which the commissioners have fallen respecting it. They 
claim that the description of the southern boundary of Que- 
bec already given from the proclamation of 1763 was 
founded upon the map of Evans published in 1755. But very 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


27 


unluckily, the map published by Lewis Evans at that time 
was a map of the middle British colonies only. It was not 
until 1770, or thirteen years after the proclamation, that Gov- 
ernor Pownall’s addition to it, containing New England and 
the bordering parts of Canada, saw the light. Hence it follows 
that the framers of the proclamation must have had some other 
guide to go by than this map, and that, if the public is to 11 find 
in the descriptions of the country contained in the public docu- 
ments promulgated immediately after the peace of 1763 a mere 
echo of the information produced by the explorations of Gov- 
ernor Pownall,” it is probably of a novel species of echo that 
the commissioners treat which is heard before the sound that 
occasions it. 

The truth is, that Mitchell’s map, and Mitchell’s map only, 
is the important one in the whole of this controversy. And 
that not solely because it was a map undertaken by direction 
of the lords of trade, and derived from official papers in their 
office, and was, therefore, more likely to be accurate than any 
other map of the same date, but because there is abundant evi- 
dence on record, to prove that it was the guide of £he nego- 
tiators of the treaty of 1783. It is altogether likely that this 
map was the guide of the British government in drawing up 
the proclamation, instead of that of Pownall, which has been 
shown to have had a much later origin. Neither is Pownall’s 
map itself, at all deserving of comparison with it in point of 
accuracy or fulness. The great reason why it has been dragged 
into the discussion, appears to be, that along the interior, there 
appears very vaguely laid down, a line called the “ height of 
the land.” And as this line thus vague, may be made to cor- 
respond to the u axis of maximum elevation,” in quest of 
which the commissioners were sent, they very quietly set it 
down as the same. They go on to say, that this ridge was 
familiarly known to Governor Pownall and the British, ninety 
years ago, not withstanding that in another part of the same re- 
port, they claim great credit to themselves for having just found 
it now, and notwithstanding that Governor Pownall himself de- 


28 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


dared, that “ of the nature and course of this highland, 5 ’ that 
is, of the highland between the Kennebec and the Chaudiere 
eastward , he was totally uninformed. 

Your Committee will pass at once to another argument of 
the commissioners, drawn from a minute inspection of the in- 
structions given by the Congress of the Confederation to their 
ministers who negotiated the treaty on the part of the United 
States. It appears by them, that the Congress directed them 
first of all to press their claim of boundary beyond the St Croix 
river, and quite up to the St. John’s on the east, and to take 
that river as the line from its source to its mouth. This was 
done under the impression, that the charter of Massachusetts 
given in 1691, which was the source of authority respecting 
-the boundaries of that province, justified the pretension. But 
when this claim was declared utterly inadmissible by Great 
Britain, the American negotiators were directed to fail back 
upon the exact lines that could be clearly maintained by refer- 
ence to the charter, and to make the St. Croix one of those 
lines; and to these terms the British ministers finally assented. 

The exact use which Her Majesty’s commissioners make of 
these facts is this. They argue that the British refusal to make 
the St. John’s the boundary in the first instance, is utterly in- 
consistent with the supposition of assent afterwards, to any such 
north line towards the highlands as the Americans claim : be- 
cause it implies the absurd idea that the British ministry would 
have been willing to concede at last a greater and more valua- 
ble territory under a boundary avowedly reduced, than they 
originally refused to yield, and the very proposition of which 
they declared to be utterly inadmissible. When the American 
negotiators therefore decided upon receding from the claim as 
far as the St. John’s, they could not be supposed to intend to 
substitute as less inadmissible a new claim that proves in fact 
to be still larger in extent than the rejected one. 

Your Committee will admit at once, that there is something 
very plausible in this argument. But upon examination, they 
are confident it will turn out to be only plausible and not sound. 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


29 


In the first place, it is not true that the territory which would 
have been gained by making the St. John’s from its mouth to 
its source, the boundary line, either was at the time of making 
the treaty, or is even now regarded by the British of less value 
than that claimed under the terms of that treaty. No further 
proof of this can be needed, than the refusal of the British 
Government to listen to Mr. Forsyth, when he offered, a 
short time since, to compromise the dispute, by adopting this 
very same line of the St. John’s as the boundary. If such is the 
estimate now placed upon the land near the coast in preference 
to the interior, how much greater must it have been sixty years 
since, when wild and unexplored lands generally bore a far 
smaller relative value to the sea-board, than now. In the next 
place, it does not appear that value was regarded nearly so much 
in the course of the negotiation as the strict proof of legal title. 
When convinced that they could not establish their claim to 
go to the St. John’s, the Americans determined upon planting 
themselves in a position from which they could not be driven. 
That position was taken upon the Massachusetts charter of 
1691, modified by the tacit assent to the proclamation of 1763, 
given in the manner and for reasons already shown. That 
position was admitted to be sound by the British negotiators, 
for they, in their turn, retreated from the claims they succes- 
sively presented, to go westward to the Kennebec, and then to 
the Penobscot, as the boundary, and both parties united upon 
a description of it, which had been found by examination, 
to have prevailed before that time in the authorized public pa- 
pers emanating from the British Government itself. 

This is believed to be a true history of the course of the ne- 
gotiation so far as it respects the boundary line now in question. 
The negotiators on neither side relied upon the first claim pre- 
sented by them. But they adhered, in their case, to a practice 
common in most transactions of the kind as well as in disputed 
questions of property in private life, — that is, the practice of 
advancing pretensions as far as they can be carried with any 
show of justice, in order that each party as it approaches towards 
a settlement may appear disposed to compromise by sacrificing 


i 


30 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


a part of what it claims. Thus it was in the treaty of 1783. 
Great Britain first claimed to go westward to the Kennebec, — 
she then claimed to go only as far as the Penobscot. America 
on her side claimed to go east to the St. John’s. But when 
these propositions were declined on each side, the consequence 
was the selection of some intermediate river consistently with 
the preservation of all ancient rights on both parts. And thus 
the St. Croix and the due north line from its source which ap- 
peared in former deeds, as the boundary line to the eastward of 
Massachusetts, were transferred into the second article of the 
treaty and made the boundary of the United States. By this 
result both parties agreed then to be bound, and the only source 
of regret that can ever arise from this article, must be that both 
parties have not remained equally willing to abide by the plain 
meaning which its language conveys. 

There was one point however, which proved to be really 
very difficult to decide, — and that was, inasmuch as the St. 
Croix proved to have many sources that unite to form the 
stream known by that name, which of these sources was to be 
adhered to as the true St. Croix. The question was important 
not only because these branches diverged pretty widely from 
each other, but because the running of the due north line would 
be varied according as an eastern or western branch should be 
selected as the source. In order that this and other similar diffi- 
culties might be removed, a convention was made between 
the two governments in 1794, in which it was provided that 
three commissioners should be appointed, one by each party, 
and if the third could not be named by agreement between the 
two thus selected, one was to be chosen by lot out of two 
names to be proposed by them. — These three persons thus ob- 
tained were to adjudicate the question which was the true 
source of the St. Croix. Now it did so happen that in execut- 
ing the terms of this agreement, an American, the late Egbert 
Benson, was the person added by lot to Judge Howell and Col- 
onel Barclay, who had been appointed by their respective go- 
vernments. There followed long deliberation and much dif- 
ference of opinion among the members of the Board thus con- 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No 44. 


31 


sti tuted, the British commissioner resting upon no slight array 
of authority on the extreme western source called th * Scoodiac 
as the true St. Croix, whilst one of the Americans as resolutely 
maintained an eastern branch called the Magaguadavic to be 
the true St. Croix. This he did because it was so called 
in Mitchell’s Map, which was proved to have been the guide to 
the negotiators in the formation of the treaty. Upon Mr. 
Benson devolved the responsibility of the decision, and he de- 
cided, notwithstanding his American origin, in favor of the 
English claim as far as the mouth of the Scoodiac Lake. It 
was not until after this decision and in consequence of a dis- 
covery that it would disturb the titles to grants made under the 
authority of the respective governments on the wrong side of 
the proposed line, that a compromise was agreed upon by which 
the Cheputnatecook, or the most northerly source, was substituted 
for the Scoodiac. This compromise was cheerfully assented to 
by both parties, and a monument was afterwards erected at the 
source of the Cheputnatecook from which it was perfectly well 
understood that the due north line was to take its course. 

Your Committee have dwelt upon this perhaps the best known 
portion of the history of this difficult and complicated controversy 
a little more than they should, had not the decision thus given 
been made a pretext for a most unfounded accusation on the 
part of the commissioners of survey. It is declared by them 
that this decision was so flagrantly partial and unjust to Great 
Britain as hardly to deserve that she should even at this late 
day consent to abide by it. Such is the reward which one of 
the most remarkable examples upon record of impartiality de- 
ciding against one’s own country is now to receive. There is 
abundant evidence to show that Mr. Benson was regarded by 
the American agent even before the decision, as entirely and 
unfortunately friendly to the British claim, yet this magnanimity 
of his which refused to take the slightest advantage of the de- 
cision of fortune in his favor, and which inclined to judge the 
whole case exclusively upon what appeared to him to be its 
merits, seems not merely to be unlikely to meet with either ac- 
knowledgment or reciprocation by the party benefited, but is 


32 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


to be converted into a positive reproach. If such is to be the 
fate of the most conciliatory act ever committed in the negotia- 
tions upon the subject, can it be much wondered at if all traces 
of such a spirit should vanish ? And will it be astonishing if 
Americans should prefer to be sure to stand well with their own 
countrymen rather than run the double risk of confidence with- 
drawn at home and ingratitude from abroad ? 

But in what words shall your Committee express their feel- 
ings, at the perception of a bare intimation, on the part of Her 
Majesty’s commissioners, that the plighted faith of the British 
nation should be broken for the sake of one million of acres of 
land? Fortunately, very fortunately for the peace of the two 
great nations engaged in this controversy, their interests are 
entrusted to hands which would spurn with contempt so base 
a proposal, from whatever source it might come. But although 
your Committee would never allow themselves to doubt, for 
an instant, the honor and perfect good faith of Her Majesty’s 
government, and their inviolable adherence to treaties once 
solemnly acknowledged and reciprocally executed, they cannot 
but profoundly regret, that a sentence such as the one alluded 
to should have been permitted to defile a report printed under 
its eye. Not because, in their eyes, it implies a sanction to the 
argument intended to be conveyed. The hour that should 
induce them to believe in the possibility of such sanction, 
would be that in which the standard of St. George would be- 
token to them nothing but disgrace. Neither because the opin- 
ions or the reasoning of the commissioners are likely to carry 
much weight with them, wherever they are known. Those 
who are proved to be disingenuous rarely can persuade. The 
only reason why your Committee regret to see the sentence 
alluded to in the report, is, that it is calculated to rouse pas- 
sions in the United States, which they earnestly hope will be 
kept quieted — and that it may inspire a degree of distrust on 
the part of the public, in the good intentions of the British 
nation, which they believe to be wholly unmerited. 

In the present examination of the report of Her Majesty’s 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


33 


officers of survey, your Committee are aware that it is not 
practicable, within any reasonable limits, to follow into all its 
details the erroneous positions that it contains — neither is it 
certain that the effort to do so would be worth making, if it 
was. There is one branch of the subject, most particularly, 
which they would avoid to treat, because it has been, in their 
opinion, most improperly introduced and insisted upon in the 
discussion. They refer to all the argument drawn from the 
supposed admissions upon one side or the other, made, directly 
or indirectly, by official agents, who have been employed since 
the date of the treaty. In the business of hunting up such 
evidence, the two nations are by no means on an equal footing. 
For whilst it is the habit of the United States to throw open 
to public view, all of the official correspondence carried on by 
their agents, that is not so immediately connected with exist- 
ing negotiations as to make the publication obviously improper, 
a very contrary system prevails in Great Britain, of publishing 
nothing unless upon some urgent call. It therefore follows, 
that whilst the latter country has the opportunity of discover- 
ing every error of inadvertence or of haste, that may be found 
in letters originally written as confidential by American public 
agents, the United States has no such opportunity of examin- 
ing the British correspondence. And even supposing that they 
had, what does the information thus gained amount to, and 
what effect can it produce upon the true issue ? The wonder 
is, that after all the disclosures that have taken place, so little 
has been found to oppose to the strong, unanimous, deep set- 
tled and perpetually repeated expressions of unbounded confi- 
dence in the soundness of the claim. In the whole history of 
the dispute, there is no American admission, in the most secret 
communication with the government at home, of which foreign 
nations are not supposed to have any right of cognizance what- 
soever, which can compare in force with the letter of Sir Robert 
Liston upon the decision of the commissioners in 1798, or with 
the proposition for a “ variation” of the line of boundary made 
by the British negotiators at the treaty of Ghent. — If evidence 

5 


34 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


of this sort were to be relied upon, the debates in the British 
Parliament upon the subject of the treaty of 1783, had immedi- 
ately after the negotiation, deserve attention, as a disclosure of 
the opinions prevailing in England at that time. Yet, notwith- 
standing all this, your Committee would omit to rest upon the 
ground which such admissions furnish, because they intend to 
rest upon the higher and only ground which ought to be as- 
sumed — and that is, the merits of the question itself. They 
cannot conceive that the subordinate matters connected with 
the good or bad management of a dispute of sixty years stand- 
ing, should be entitled to overrule or put aside the undoubted 
issue which the general position of two nations most distinctly 
presents. 

There remains to be considered, only that part of the report 
which gives the results of the survey. And although it clearly 
appears, from the limited time devoted to that work, as well as 
from the confessions of the commissioners, that they did not 
thoroughly perform all of the duty they were required to per- 
form, your Committee think they performed enough to show 
the important fact, that the treaty can be literally executed. 
It is for this reason they think the report not to be wholly 
without value. For, casting aside the argumentative portion, 
as not only worthless in itself, but too disingenuous to aid the 
cause it has espoused, they consider the description of the nat- 
ural features of the country as going far to corroborate all the 
reasoning hitherto advanced upon the American side respecting 
its character. It may be deduced from the report, that the 
tendency of the high land in the country, now in question, is, 
as it is in the rest of North America, to run in ridges parallel to 
each other, in a northeasterly and southwesterly direction. It 
is further admitted, that there are two of these ridges, and that 
between the two is a basin, through which find their way the 
tributaries of the St. John and the Restigouche — the St. John 
flowing through it for some time, until it winds its way south- 
east into the Bay of Fundy, the other tracing its course to the 
Bay of Chaleurs. Now the single question that can arise, 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


35 


should it turn out that these are the only ridges or highlands 
in the territory, is whether either corresponds to the terms of 
the treaty, so far as that it will serve for a boundary line be- 
tween the two nations, and if so, which answers the purpose 
most precisely. It will not do to say as the report does : 

“It will be satisfactory to us, if we shall be able to satisfy your lordship 
that there are reasonable grounds for thinking, that the true line of bound- 
ary has been hitherto overlooked ; and that, consequently, the line claimed 
by the State of Maine fails, upon examination, in every essential particular.” 

Your Committee are at a loss to see the necessary connexion 
between these two propositions. If the true line of boundary 
has been overlooked hitherto, that claimed by Maine, fails 
because it is not the true one. If, on the other hand, it fails, 
upon examination, in every essential particular, it must be 
rejected without any reference whatsoever to any other that 
may have been discovered. But your Committee utterly deny 
that the report proves either proposition separately, or both 
united. The southerly of the two ridges, which is dignified 
with the title of “ the axis of maximum elevation,” and which 
the commissioners maintain to be the true line, is not the true 
line, because it does not correspond to the boundary of the 
proclamation of 1763, nor to the second article of the treaty of 
1783, nor entirely to the argument of the commissioners them- 
selves. It may be shaded off as nicely upon a map as artists 
can draw it, and yet will serve no useful purpose. It strikes 
the south coast of the Bay des Chaleurs, when the proclama- 
tion distinctly specifies the north coast as the boundary line of 
Quebec. It divides no sources of rivers but those of tributa- 
ries of the Penobscot from tributaries of the St. John, neither 
of which flow into the St. Lawrence, so that it does not meet 
the requisition of the treaty. And it ranges in so westerly a 
direction as to be utterly at variance with the general tenor of 
the commissioners 5 argument about the ancient boundary of 
Nova Scotia, — the least bad argument where all are bad. It 
is utterly inconsistent with all the deeds and commissions 
issued by Great Britain during the last century, and can never 


36 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


be sustained by any reasoning other than that last species 
which overlooks right in its reliance upon physical power. 

There is one sentence, however, in the report, which re- 
quires from your Committee a most cheerful acknowledgement 

/ 

of its truth. It is that 

“ The boundary must be determined by applying the words of the treaty 
to the natural features of the country itself, and not by applying those words 
to any map.” 

Now maps are only of service as they are guides to those 
natural features which no ingenuity can make men mistake ; so 
far they are of great service. If this southerly range of high- 
land is proved not to correspond with the terms of the treaty, 
the next thing to do is to find whether any other highlands 
exist which do correspond with them. Her Majesty’s com- 
missioners clearly admit that such other highlands do exist on 
the north of their proposed line, though they deny them to be 
continuous or regular, and hence maintain that they do not 
answer the requisition of the treaty. Upon these points, your 
Committee are ready to join issue. They deny that the treaty 
requires any particular, connected, regular “ axis of maximum 
elevation.” They deny that the United States has ever pitched 
upon this or that mountain as any measure of the elevation 
required. They affirm that the only range of highland re- 
quired, is that which will shed water on its opposite sides and 
prevent it from flowing into one mass. They affirm that what 
does not flow into the St. Lawrence flows in a direction differ- 
ent from that which does flows into that river. And that is 
enough to mark in characters as clear as light the boundary of 
the treaty. And whatever may be the ultimate termination of 
the present controversy, there will that boundary remain until 
some terrible convulsion of nature overwhelm it, at once to 
testify to the exactness of the negotiators of the treaty, and to 
the manner in which its conditions shall have been fulfilled. 

Your Committee have now executed what they deemed to 
be their d j;:y, although under a full sense how imperfectly they 
have succeeded in exposing, as they deserved to be exposed, the 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


37 


manifold and wilful errors of the report. They trust that the 

American officers who have had charge of the execution of a 

♦ * 

survey, on the part of the United States, during the past sea- 
son, will before long present results, not only of a different 
character from those furnished by their predecessors from Great 
Britain, but in a manner strikingly to contrast with theirs. 
For if they cannot, if the cause of the Union and of the State 
of Maine is not strong enough in itself to dispense with all 
such extrinsic aid as dishonest artifice can afford it, better were 
it for both at once to cede the whole disputed territory to their 
opponent, than by a successful resort to it, to pollute one single 
page of their record with such a proof of disgraceful victory. 

The Committee have not deemed it proper to include within 
this report any reference to negotiations now pending, respect- 
ing the proposal of a joint commission, of the probable result 
of which they are not informed. They would, therefore, now 
close by respectfully recommending the adoption of the accom- 
panying resolutions. 

By order of the Committee, 


CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 


38 


NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 


[Feb. 


eommontDcaltij of iffassadntsctts. 


In the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-one. 


RESOLVES 


Concerning the North-Eastern Boundary. 

Resolved , That the right of the United States, and of 
the State of Maine, to require of Great Britain the literal 
and immediate execution of the terms of the second arti- 
cle of the treaty of 1783, so far as they relate to the bound- 
ary from the source of the St. Croix river to the north- 
westernmost head of Connecticut river, remains, after the 
lapse of more than half a century, unimpaired by the pas- 
sage of time or by the interposition of multiplied objec- 
tions. 

Resolved , That although there is no cause to appre- 
hend any immediate collision between the two nations on 
account of the controversy respecting the said boundary, 
it is nevertheless most earnestly to be desired that a 
speedy and effectual termination be put to a difference, 
which might even, by a remote possibility, produce conse- 
quences that humanity would deplore. 

Resolved , That the late Report made to the govern- 


1841.] 


HOUSE— No. 44. 


39 


ment of Great Britain, by their commissioners of survey, 
Messrs. Featherstonhaugh and Mudge, though not to be 
regarded as having yet received the sanction of that gov- 
ernment, is calculated to produce, in every part of the 
United States where it is examined, a state of the public 
mind highly unfavorable to that conciliatory temper, and 
to that mutual confidence in the good intentions of each 
other, without which it is hopeless to expect a satisfactory 
result to controversies between nations. 

Resolved, That the interest and the honor of Massachu- 
setts alike demand a perseverance, not the less determined 
because it is temperate, in maintaining the rights of 
Maine. And that we now cheerfully repeat our often 
recorded response to her demand, that the justice which 
has been so long withheld should be speedily done to her 
— and that, whilst we extend to her our sympathy for her 
past wrongs, we again assure her of our unshaken resolu- 
tion to sustain the territorial rights of the Union. 

Resolved, That His Excellency the Governor be re- 
quested to transmit a copy of these resolves, and the 
accompanying report, to the Executive of the United 

States, and of the several States ; and to each of the Sena- 

\ 

tors and members of the House of Representative^ from 
Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States. 


f 40 










© H 0 


V 


% & T 
: w • 


- 1 

•■ ^ / * 


© # 


* .^ v ^ * 


• a>y ' 

»* <y rf» ° t 

o ^ 7 .|‘ A <* ‘’•• 7 « A 0> ~'© r 

•'•-» ? 0 - --A.^ . • 1 '.* ♦ ,Cr 

L *© w Vj • «< 5 cu v-^^ - O 

*- ^ 6* • 


o V 


m 


9 , ‘‘■Tv-.*' Ap' V '» 

%, 4 jr > 

'# > J . * 


© « © 


* ^ A 

: Y* . 

‘ .4- v * 

r C° °o 

* 6 1 r 


t '\P V ° 

> a v Y * 

f V ^ * 

4 A 


7 . '»,»'> ,0 




Y °^ 


a 


^ *‘>«° 0 * A* 


7 - V T »’*°- C 4 


\y^’’’ f° 


Y Y *- 


* <£* ^ "• 

A* ^ '*^ 77 * ' A 

.•“♦.V .■£ 


A 

•V c°V 

*- +» o* o' 

• ^ 

* <T * O * 

o » 0 ’ A %. *•• 

V .**- 

^ vP. O, *“ 

e Yfr* A V ♦ ^ 

* \WeM: ^ v 


» * * © - V *> V^ ♦ «_•_©* ’O 


0 w «* 


i • 




\ ’’W 


h ^ 


w* V}> il 

i V 


• ^ 


,*<£» •* 

<£> ** 

A v <5^ * 

4? * 

4 ? ‘VMV- A- . 


© » ^ 


-^5 °r<* 

' *y o 

° * ° ^ vy ^ * 

V r T • C\ 4.0 


>' *° **, * 


A> 

* .»*••'* > 


© I 



o 

S v ** 





\V 

. . y - 1 * 


xx' * : 



°<u * * f°° "%• *" ° » ° ’ 

’ c\ j>o' » »' ' % ^ v «"*® 

'• *«» ^ .ySMfef. ** ^ * 


o 
o 

c> 'Ca - c 

* <t? * S^BirS * 

» K 2J> * v rU •* * 

V <» '••** A° ^ '-^ '* / 

,4* ,.iVA. V c° -isa •• % ^ 

** -v^--. ^ .•^ sw ■ -' 4 

* A Os * 

„ -0.* <£> 

' K * 



.** vv 

V * 


V 



, < ?vf' 

* V 

(f ^l' °o 




-jJ^ > . * * ' 4 * ^k . v 

< ,w^ % > , 

; ^ : 

* &y o 

* o 


*.T.* **T^ '\$P' ... 

* '’V A^* *VS&?V* ^*- .1^ 

' vr * 5^#V^2 >V 

* -s^. :<sOI^« <v*\ "»w. 



* «/ ^ - 



\0 *7* 

v A * 

o ^ r^tVjjy^ * S) ** * 

^ -JsP «, ► V V * ‘ 

• ^ > *Yafof« aV 





« 

A V ^ » 

^r,* A s <?» » 

^V* r\ -A 

* aV %> 

WERT |l 
BOOKBINDING |fl 

Grantville, Pa 
Jan Feb 1989 

We re Qu*T*i± Bov^c 


O. . * <0 -r\ 

' ^ o ^rvJlyW + o ^ 

* » Vo * . °^. * " r'' • ’ \a° „ V 

^ /. V ’«^> 4 % ^Ki/7fW •« 

Ik , v >r- » tC '29 ’ ^ 




' 





^° ^ » . 

°o 0 ° + ** 

°*U "' A 0 

x .vr **j.‘ % ^ 





































































